Conversations in Grief Blog: Jenga & Grief
Jenga & Grief
by Laura Wessels
In the game of Jenga, each player’s goal is to pull pieces out of the constructed tower without it collapsing. The challenge of the game is to find a piece to remove that won’t impact the stability of the tower. How many holes can there be before the tower crashes down?
The bereaved can relate. The deaths of their loved ones leave huge, jagged holes in their lives. It’s a hole, they tell me, that is in the shape of their loved one and not one they necessarily want to fill.
That’s their challenge. How do they keep the tower of their life intact while honoring their loss and their emptiness?
One woman recognized that she would no longer golf without her spouse. She removed the golf clubs from her “tower” by donating them. In that new space, she discovers other activities that bring her joy. She both enlarged the gap in her structure and then filled it with something different, something that made more sense in her new reality.
Another woman was caring for her husband in their home. When she had to leave for an appointment, her routine was to honk the horn as she left the driveway to let him know she was on her way. After his death, as she leaves home, she continues their tradition of honking the horn. She is protecting the emptiness in her “tower,” remembering how they communicated and acknowledging that he is no longer hearing the horn.
They are “integrating.” That’s an important word in the world of grieving. As a griever contemplates her life, she sees the space in her heart and life, left by the person she lost. She knows the space must remain as a way of honoring her grief and remembering her person. She will always miss her loved one. She will gather and nurture memories and stories of her loved one. And she will begin the work of filling in some of the gaps on the edges of the hole, while also protecting the hole that represents her loved one. She is letting go of who she was before her loss and growing into who she has become. The new structure of her life reveals how her loss and her grief have changed her.
While the goal of Jenga is to pull pieces out without the tower collapsing, the goal of grief is to rebuild a life that now has a person-sized chasm in its place. The bereaved are reimagining the tower that is their life.
In the game of Jenga, players place the pieces they pulled out on top of the structure. There are more and more missing pieces in the tower and the tower grows taller.
That’s a helpful visual for the bereaved. The tower of their life gets taller with memories. The empty spaces in their life will remain, and the memories of their loved one will be visible at the top of their life, keeping them connected to the one they have lost.
May you embrace the holes in your tower while you continue to build your memories and discover new meaning and purpose in the tower that is your life.